


high enough to breathe the air (before it's touched by someone else)

by lilevans



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Marauders - Fandom
Genre: 2AM - Freeform, 7th year, Astronomy Tower, F/M, Fluff, Pre-Relationship, first wizarding war, prompts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 07:48:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13243761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilevans/pseuds/lilevans
Summary: alternatively titled “you make me ache”you find out that he’s not invisible when you find him on the astronomy tower balcony at 2:24 in the morning. you don’t know why you’re out there yourself, you can’t sleep and it’s january and the chill sits in your bones, but you ache, you can’t do nothing, if you stare at the ceiling thinking about death for too long, you will break.james and lily + "things you said with no space between us."





	high enough to breathe the air (before it's touched by someone else)

**or “you make me ache”**

 

* * *

 

You know he drives you crazy. His stupid grin and the curve of his fingers and the way his jaw clenches when people say things about remus and peter. When he talks about quidditch and schoolwork like everything is easy and nothing has ever hurt him. He has to have been hurt. He can’t be invisible.

You find out that he’s not when you find him on the Astronomy Tower balcony at 2:24 in the morning. You don’t know why you’re out there yourself, you can’t sleep and it’s January and the chill sits in your bones, but you  _ache,_ you can’t do nothing, if you stare at the ceiling thinking about death for too long, you will break.

* * *

 

He’s sitting there, overlooking the world, hair dishevelled in a way that can only be done so by wind, glasses thrown aside, as if he doesn’t really need to see, eyes puffy.

“James,” you say it without thinking, you forget your façade, you forget not to care, but the boy who makes you feel everything at once is crying and you don’t know what to do.

“Lily?” His glasses slide back onto his face hastily, yet easily, as if he’s building his own walls back up, sliding his façade back on, but you won’t let him now. You’ve both already admitted to being vulnerable, without words, then and there. 

“What’s wrong?” you ask, sitting beside him. “It’s 2am.”

“I know,” He says, sighing. His breath mists and it makes you shiver.

“War breaks everything.” He says, and he sniffles once, shortly.

You nod. Everyone has lost something, this war is only beginning, you know that, but it’s already begun to tear so many things apart. Friends are divided, people don’t know whether people from their own houses will want to join the death eaters, families are losing loved ones at every turn, disappearances and murders are happening across the globe.

You know he lost his cousin, it was all over the news. The Potters, famous wizarding family, around for centuries, lost family member who was only 19 years old. It’s all too terrible to bear.

“He was one of the only people I had, growing up.” He says, simply. He knows you know, you always know. Your hand slides into his without consequence, and you  _understand._

“Before I met Sirius, and the others, Will was all I had. He was my age, he understood, he taught me my place in the world, you know? And funny to think, he was only 19. He was gonna do so much more with his life. He was gonna be a professor, he wanted to teach Defence against the Dark Arts. He wanted to stop crime. He had a drink at the Leaky Cauldron with his mates every Friday. He knew everyone who worked in Diagon Alley and how to tell the difference between each kind of dragon there is. My mum said that his first word was ‘wand.’ And now, he’s just… Gone.”

You grip his hand tighter. You don’t know what else there is to say, there’s nothing you can do to make it better, but you hold his hand and breathe the same cool January air as him. You exist beside him and hope it’s enough.

“It’s all so terrible. Am I awful for wanting to run away sometimes?” You ask him, quietly. You think you can feel your head resting on his shoulder. He doesn’t say anything about it. It’s sort of comfortable, it feels sort of right.

“No, everyone wants to run when they’re scared, Lil. It’s that you don’t that counts. That’s what bravery is.”

You exhale. You decide you like the way the nickname sounds when he says it. But you don’t admit to it out loud. “I think you’re right. It’s just, sometimes I want to run, and other times I want to stab a knife into You-Know-Who’s gut and twist. Hit him with every painful curse there is. And it makes me think that I’m not any better than him.”

He sits up a little, looking at you with his hazel eyes. They shine a little bit, in the moonlight, from the tears, you don’t know. But it’s sort of beautiful.

“You’ll always be better than him. Because you  _don’t._ ”

You think about this for a second. “That’s the difference, isn’t it? I mean, good and evil isn’t inherent, it’s something we choose. We all think terrible things, but the difference is between those who act on evil thoughts, and those who don’t.”

He smiles at you, and in 2am light it’s kind of dazzling.

“Exactly.”

You put your head back on his shoulder and let him sniff and cry. You let him feel everything that he needs to, and he holds your hand.

“Why are you out here, Evans?” He asks after a while. You contemplate your answer.

“I couldn’t sleep. Everything is so big and complicated and my emotions on top of that were just… Frightening.”

“Emotions?”

You flop into his lap, looking up at him and the stars. He seems taken aback, but settles into it as easily as it surprises him.

“Yes. Being a teenage girl approaching a war is not easy, Potter.”

“I can only imagine.”

“You don’t have to be tough all the time, you know.” You say it so softly, so delicately that it almost undermines the phrase itself, and his eyes soften.

“I’m glad I have you to remind me.”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

He smiles at you, and it looks upside down from where you can see him, but still beautiful. You can count the freckles on his forehead from here. You didn’t think there were that many before, but now you see it up close, there are splattering’s of them everywhere.

“So what’s bothering you? Emotionally?” He asks, nonchalantly, in a tit-for-tat way. You think it’s only fair you tell him, he gave you all his guts before, but the answer is big and terrifying, and your heart catches in your throat when you try to answer.

You swallow it down again and count his freckles to slow your heartrate.

“ _You._ ”

He looks taken aback, even more so than before, his eyebrows retreat into his hair line, and you think you’ve done something wrong. You sit up horridly.

“What did I do?” He asks, and you have to smile a little. Does he really think he’s done something wrong?

You suppose maybe he has. His dumb laugh and stupid loyalty and the things he says to jab at you because he knows exactly where it hurts. The fact that he could use a million things against you to make you cry and bleed, but he doesn’t, he never will, because he would never want to hurt you. So instead, you look at him, green eyes into hazel, no space between you, and say it.

“ _You make me ache._ ”

He softens, just for a moment, and that’s when he kisses you. Messily, like someone who needs coffee, who hasn’t had a mint, who’s tired and sick of war. You kiss him like you’ve never kissed anyone before, but you’re so tired and scared and you still ache. You’re both so battered and bruised by life and you’re only seventeen years old. It’s so small, yet you can feel galaxies shattering and being reborn all at once, its gravity defying, and you’re kissing James Potter on the astronomy tower at 3am.

“And you remind me of all that is good, Evans.” He says as he pulls away. Time starts moving again and life feels clear again, as if you’ve been looking through a veil all your life.

You hold his hand and look at the sky until the sun comes up.

**Author's Note:**

> title from "elvis" by annie eve. i wrote this at midnight so i hope its ok lol. let me know your thoughts! hope you enjoyed xx


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